#9: Happy Holidays!
Happy Holidays!
This will be the last newsletter this year, and what a strange year it’s been.
Here in the UK everything is starting to slow down (at least in my house) and we focus on staying warm, eating and giving (and receiving) presents. I normally take as much time off as I can in December. For me it’s a time for family, and relaxing. Before I had a child I would spend a lot of time playing video games, and working on side projects and doing things I had no time for the rest of the year. Now I’m a Dad there’s a lot more preparing for a proper Christmas, and entertaining a 5 year old - which is a different type of fun.
This year I hope to spend some of my free time working on Brush Ninja - specifically working on something brand new. I have started making a little app for making small magazines. The magazines will be 8 page booklets that you print on a single piece of paper and then, with a single scissor cut and some folding, turn into a comic/ magazine/ book/ leaflet/ whatever you like.
Like Brush Ninja it will be totally free, and super easy to use. I’m looking forward to seeing what people do with it. I really like the idea of making a tiny library of books, and since the books are a single image that print on a single page they will be really easy to share online.
It’s early days, a lot of things will probably change, but the screenshot below shows you what I have made so far for the Magazine Creator.
Brush Ninja Updates
Besides the new app, I have also recently finished off the updates I mentioned last month. There is now a captions panel that you can use to add captions to individual frames, along with improved image export settings.
I also spent some time improving the site layout (in particular the footer) and preparing for the addition of the new app(s). If you use Dark Mode on your computer then you may notice that the colours have changed as well. I like using Dark Mode so thought I would add support for it.
Brush Ninja in Action
There’s been lots of sharing of Brush Ninja things on Twitter - which I love! Below are some of my favorites. You can also see the ones I have collected in the Galleries.
Our Introduction To Technology classes have been exploring animation. Brush Ninja has been a fun resource. #BrushNinja @ABMSTechEd pic.twitter.com/R6lJRJI8SH
— Angela Ardys Craig (@AngelaArdys) November 23, 2021
2nd Grade STEM learned how to create their own stop animation of a ball bouncing and learned how to use a mouse! #gpgoesforgold #157cisthankful @fsd157c @GP157c #allin157c #brushninja pic.twitter.com/sjqnV3YL0w
— Kellie Aranowski (@karanowski78) November 17, 2021
My students love the new shapes available in Brush Ninja #brushninja @DelilahStJulia1 @AldineISD @AldineSTEM @ReedAcad_AISD pic.twitter.com/2zHXHP3qhI
— Pamela Reece (@PkreeceReece) November 19, 2021
CES Dragons learning to use graphics tools and getting creative with Brush Ninja. Happy Thanksgiving! @CESSouthlake @Carrollisd pic.twitter.com/qewIyXhk9J
— Lori Mitchell (@CEStechteach) November 19, 2021
Thanks
I hope everyone has a great December. The next newsletter may be a couple of days late cos I might be doing something else on January the 1st (or I might not - I’ll wait and see).
Thanks again - Keep animating!
Ben
